IAS Fellow, January - February 2027
Pablo Rojas is an Assistant Professor of Classics at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in a joint appointment between the Faculty of Letters and the Institute of History. He completed his undergraduate degree in History and Classical Studies in Chile, before undertaking postgraduate training in Classics at the University of St Andrews (MPhil and PhD, 2023). Before taking on his current role, Pablo was an ANID-Chile Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh (2023-25). His research is interdisciplinary in nature, employing literary texts to investigate Roman legal culture from a perspective distinct to that of traditional legal sources.
Dr Rojas’s doctoral and postdoctoral research has combined literary criticism with historic analysis. His doctoral work on the representation of the legal world in the Annals of Tacitus situated itself within the field of Roman law and Latin literature, extending the scope beyond poetic genres while questioning strictly documentary readings of legal material in historiographical texts. This project led to the publication of the article “Callidus Emperor: Tiberius and the Law in Tacitus’ Annals” (Mnemosyne, 2025), which explores the place of calliditas in the legal imagination to better comprehend Tacitus’ characterisation of the emperor Tiberius as callidus in his approach to government and the law. Pablo is currently preparing a monograph, provisionally titled Law and Empire in Tacitus’ Annals. His most recent postdoctoral work turned to trial scenes in Latin literature, analysing the ways in which narrative in non-technical texts shapes and mediates experiences of judgement, legal authority and pardon for the Roman audiences. He is working on the article ‘The poetics and politics of translation in the Histories of Curtius Rufus’, expected to appear in the special issue “Experiencing the Past: Strategies of Textual Engagement in Greco-Roman Historical Narratives” (Antichthon, 2027).
Dr Rojas will contribute to the project’s critical interrogation of Mercy and Justice, particularly by analysing how literary representations of clementia both articulate and interrogate structures of power and hierarchy within the wider experience of the law in the ancient world. He will engage in research on the triangulation between misericordia, clementia and saevitia (pity, mercy, and savagery) in the Annals of Tacitus, within the context of his work-in-progress monograph. He will also deliver a research seminar on the representation of legal experts in Roman literary texts, addressed to both classicists and legal scholars, to demonstrate the value of a legal humanities approach for both disciplines.
TBC
Links to more information about this Fellow and Fellowship
/filters:quality(70)/prod01/prodbucket01/media/durham-university/research-/research-institutes/institute-of-advanced-study/43486-hero.jpg)